GCSE results day: Pass rates up despite major reforms to make exams tougher

Students ‘have weathered the storm of an unprecedented year of upheaval’

The number of students securing top grades at GCSE has risen despite major reforms to make the qualifications more challenging.

Across the UK, the proportion of students gaining an A grade – or a 7 under the new grading system – increased for the first time in seven years to 20.5 per cent, the official figures revealed.

Meanwhile, 66.9 per cent were awarded a C – or a 4 which is now considered to be a “standard pass” – this summer, which is also up by 0.5 percentage points from 66.4 per cent last year.

The rises come despite major changes to GCSEs to make them tougher, with more demanding content, less coursework and a focus on exams at the end of two years.

Traditional A* to G grades are also being replaced with 9 to 1 grades under the new GCSE grading system in England. A grade 9 – the new top grade – will be harder to get than an A*.

More than half a million pupils received their results on Thursday, but only 732 16-year-olds in England, who took at least seven new GCSEs, scored a clean sweep of 9s in all subjects.

Girls still do perform better than boys across the top grades and pass rate, and they are much more likely to achieve a “clean sweep” of the new grade 9s.

More than three in five (62 per cent) of girls scored grade 9s in seven or more GCSEs, compared with 38 per cent of boys, the figures from exams regulator Ofqual showed.

But boys are closing in on girls in terms of top grades, with the gap between the sexes the smallest it has been for eight years.

Figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) show that 17.2 per cent of boys’ entries scored an A or a 7, up from 16.4 per cent last year, while girls’ remained static at 23.7 per cent.

Experts had predicted that the reformed, tougher GCSEs in England – which have less coursework – would favour boys who are said to be better at exams at the end of year.

Last year, the first reformed GCSEs in English and maths were graded using numbers, and this year an additional 20 subjects, including sciences and languages, have been awarded under the scale.

The “standard pass” rates fell last summer – in the first year that the reformed GCSEs were awarded – but the results have now reached the same levels as 2016.

Michael Turner, director general of JCQ, said the statistics showed “considerable stability at a time of significant reform to the structure and content of the GCSEs”.

Figures out on Thursday also showed huge disparities in the proportion of 9 grades handed out across different subjects. In classical subjects – which include Latin and Classical Greek – 37.7 per cent of all exams were graded 9. Meanwhile, just two per cent of students taking English achieved a 9.

Entries to sciences, history and geography at GCSE increased, while the number of entries to modern foreign languages at GCSE also rose slightly despite concerns about a decline in uptake.

The move towards sciences and humanities is likely to have been caused by the government’s introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), a league table measure which recognises teenagers who take GCSEs in English, maths, science, history or geography, and a language.

GCSE entries in art and design increased this year, but entries for design and technology and other arts subjects fell. For example, entries for D&T plummeted by nearly a quarter on last year.

Performing and expressive arts entries have fallen by 45 per cent in a year, while music entries have dropped by 7 per cent. Media, film and TV studies entries dropped by 6 per cent and drama entries were down 5 per cent.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “The government must wake up to the fact that its policies are eroding the breadth of curriculum that has long been a hallmark of our education system.”

He added that students “have weathered the storm of an unprecedented year of upheaval”.

“We are concerned about the additional pressure this has placed on students and teachers and the impact on their wellbeing, and we are not clear why the government felt it necessary to ratchet up the pressure to such an extent and what this was intended to achieve,” Mr Barton said.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, education standards are rising in our schools and pupils have shown their abilities by achieving excellent results today, with so many pupils meeting and exceeding the standards we expect.”